Poems Inspired by Book 15

.Featuring:

Greg Mackie and Carol Robson

HOPE AND DEFIANCE

by Greg Mackie Book 15

Her father died down the pit,and her mother, bitter,threw plates and angry words.

This was her history –the filter through whichwe sought to understand her,and by extension, ourselves.

And though I may sit here,cynical and tired, and claim that the chains of destinyare as fragileas the chains of an aging mineshaft lift –I don’t truly believe that.

The chains of our destinywere forged with hope and defiance:we survived wars and accidents and disease,we walked on mud tracks and tarmac and the thin dust of the moon;we built a world in our image – brave and bold and beautiful and ugly and stark and cruel and tender.

And though I may sit here,cynical and tired, I look inside myselfand see the values that she passed on.

“People are good.”

“Everybody is equal.”

“Nothing is worth morethan a human life.”

There are days,everything contradicts this –

Ideas may be indestructible,but values melt in the sun,and so we encapsulate them in legends,pass them down through the generations,bestow them an eternity,in the company of men and gods and wolves and snakes.

And though I may sit here,cynical and tired, I open a book,a poem of transformations,and the very last line,the very last thought,a declaration,of hope and defiance –

“I will live!”

.

Veggie

(Pythagoras)

by Carol Robson

In thy mathematical mindthat strains beyond calculusin theorem of lifethat shall not be takenfor the sustenance of another.

All life be preciousfor blessed reincarnationfor all life’s creaturesas in human life we wishto return in form,of whatever is blessed.

We should not feast on the beastthat perchance you devoura relative or friendthat passed and returned,in true transmigration of soul.

Our perfect abstention,from feasting on another life,to only feed on mother earth’s bountythat sustains us in body and soulthat keeps us in harmony for reincarnation, for continuation of our soul transmigration.

Nat’s poem Syclla is the last poem from Book 14 as we now head into the last book of Metamorphoses and to the deification of Caesar Augustus. The last month of this season will be sprinkled with the Transformers poetry on Book 15.

Poems Inspired by Book 14

.Featuring:

Karin Heyer and James Knight

Persuasion not force

(Pomona and Vertumnus)

by Karin Heyer

Weaving, weaving story into story Pomona in her garden stood and listened. He told her that he loved her — it was in vain. She tended her garden, never any want of watering, that is how her garden grew into a magical creation of living growth and beauty. He still told her that he loved her: it was in vain! For her he changed his thought and appearance, he used all manner of persuasion, for she was his first and last love and behold a fairy-tale ends well, the dream is there, unhampered as the angels, she paid homage and listened to her first and last love.

Scylla

by James Knight

.

She movement wading moments

was as waist some forced clad of deep mountainous up in waving into mass to some gently of the kind to pool flesh top and only surged amid soft up a white

Before find through mass stuff of which gates water narrow blood clung there around orifice and close sat

On her as slime to either groin though and her side erupt forced what form with yelping shape monsters

The at power thinking opening the infinite entrails her the part smaller of sinuous waste of a figure and her itself monster

With seeking into colour wide her gigantic larger dazzled Cerberian thighs lizard space when mouths her or disclosed the full legs serpent sections sun

Worm her hideous voice peal lull Adam when jaws pause

Sir Cerberus’s seething had and would

She contents seen sweet creep stands of looking If the raging hole the soft disturb’d dogs rose trees dominant note her by eyes womb beasts

And below bubbling emerald-green sibilation kennel the spring flickering her surface and like hands yet from Adam great too there which saw lamps were still her part long bark’d truncated of a flexible and thighs the gale white howl’d

Poems Inspired by Book 14

.Featuring:

Adam Wimbush and Rebecca Audra Smith

Sniffing the Art Frost

by Adam Wimbush

In an orbital temple given to a goddess She raised them, inspired them. And in thine honour metamorphed them, but She had learnt to hate cycles.

Ploughing their last great-hearted incantations, Scylla and mutual friends greeted my mind, To ask of those eyes framed with wrinkles, Those deep wells filled with spells and herbs.

Said I “Crave no cure for beast splicing. To delirium. That is where I circle pray. I come to vent her rage.” Years dropped like feather bombs.

Nor perhaps my wounds; Skin Trophys, From burgaling the Gods. I found new unexpectedness. I was loved and pleased, and, Like incense burning we slipped into old age. Our magic like a mist obscuring the soul.

….

With many a frenzy, horror filled me bristles. Call Moly; a white bloom with a tough wide snout, Fell over my heads as I watched Belching chieftains from the main hills. Anti-fates was back. Rising cautiously. As the waves feared the bright sun. It told of how scents ruled the air.

Keep well away from her erogenous zones, For who really knows the earth? As we pad ungratefully upon her crust.

But my thoughts wagged like excited puppy tails. There were tons of changes, but, I lacked the great bloody gobbets and thought flecks, For I was born among the flux. I felt the weight of the universe, As I slithered in me roots.

I say all this mixed up from wine. She is woven with plant cells, from wood nymphs, shores and more.

No? They were our epic ripples too.

……

The worst was westward way. Muses for the nymphs fair course. Then gathering a glittering camp, She rushed her smouldering charge of electricity, She intertwined twice and twice she tamed the wild prey.

Leaping nimbly from ancient text, We found her snaking within the long rivers of his veins, My foam flecked woman. And only the mad could tell the tale, Of fostering Venus, who when a horse, Favoured my passion shapes.

Black out. Lights burnt out. Then eastward where lofty beasts are slow meat, They are claimed by ghostly swarms instead. Picks turn over the soil of fear. As I recalled I was nowhere, nothing happened.

Now accept us.

…..

Many deserve her anger. She replaced her wings and mimicked oceans.

Together tossed in the sound storm, I drove the lusty ship to the end. The last kiss from her smiling scythe like lips.

Remember we are both ends of the light beam. We wear the perfume of science. Farm the pastures of conflicts.

In short we are all lost in the webbed heaven of ideas, And all the ancient apples and bitter berries of Eden Cannot disguise this disguise.

.

Glaucus and Scylla

by Rebecca Audra Smith

‘Sooner than my love will change, leaves will grow on the waters,

and sea-weed will grow on the hills.’

Sooner than my love will change pigs will fly, men turn to pigs, fish marry birds. You will speak in the tongue of transformed animals. You will bay and hoot and snort.

My love will not grapple as Peleus and Thetis did. Her shape rolling and tearing and mutating. My love will be rock steady, as steady as Scylla, monsters deep in the water, stone gripping her veins.

To get involved contact us via any of the comments boxes on our posts/pages or @ArtiPeeps. You would be very welcome!

Vikings Ahoy! It’s The Nine Realms!

ONGOING EPICS

THE NINE REALMS (2014-2015):
Watch this space for our next 9-month large-scale collaborative project ! Starting in the 2nd Week of October 2014. Inspired by the Norse Sagas and Norse Cosmology, Giving creative opportunities to nearly 50 creatives. We'll be combining poetry, prose, art, music and sculpting a Viking boat out of ash, Vikings Ahoy!!!

The Nine Realms Poetry Playlist

The Nine Realms Realm Music

PAST EPIC COLLABORATIONS

TRANSFORMATIONS (2013-2014)

A POETRY AND ART EPIC:

31 Creatives from all around the world and the UK showcased through 1 Contemporary Reworking of Ovid's Metamorphoses.

Making the virtual real via a poetry-art exhibition held at Hanse House, Norfolk, 12-14th September 2014,

The launch of our large-scale exhibition template to be used to give creatives from all disciplines collaborative opportunities year on year.

Wisdom & Mindfulness

ArtiPeeps Videos On Vimeo

Osho: From The Book of Understanding

EXPRESS YOURSELF IN AS MANY WAYS AS POSSIBLE WITHOUT FEAR.THERE IS NOTHING TO FEAR.THERE IS NOBODY WHO IS GOING TO PUNISH OR REWARD YOU. EXPRESS YOUR BEING IN ITS TRUEST FORM, IN ITS NATURAL FLOW, YOU WILL BE REWARDED IMMEDIATELY, NOT TOMORROW BUT TODAY, HERE & NOW. YOU ARE PUNISHED ONLY WHEN YOU GO AGAINST YOUR NATURE. BUT THE PUNISHMENT IS A HELP. IT IS SIMPLY AN INDICATION THAT YOU HAVE MOVED AWAY FROM NATURE, THAT YOU HAVE GONE A LITTLE ASTRAY-OFF THE ROAD-COME BACK. PUNISHMENT IS NO REVENGE.NO, PUNISHMENT IS ONLY AN EFFORT TO WAKE YOU UP: 'WHAT ARE YOU DOING?' . SOMETHING IS WRONG, SOMETHING IS GOING AGAINST YOURSELF. THAT'S WHY THERE IS PAIN, THERE IS ANXIETY.

EVOLUTION IS INTRINSIC TO MAN'S NATURE, EVOLUTION IS HIS VERY SOUL, AND THOSE WHO TAKE THEMSELVES FOR GRANTED REMAIN UNFULFILLED. THOSE WHO THINK THEY ARE BORN COMPLETE REMAIN UNEVOLVED. THEN THE SEED REMAINS THE SEED. IT NEVER BECOMES A TREE AND NEVER KNOWS THE JOYS OF SPRING AND THE SUNSHINE AND THE RAIN AND THE ECSTASY OF BURSTING INTO MILLIONS OF FLOWERS.